A citizen’s media group has lodged a complaint against German television channel ZDF for airing a photograph of Russian tanks in eastern Ukraine, which in reality were Russian tanks on patrol in South Ossetia in 2008.

Just days after a US politician presented on the Senate floor
falsified images of Russian tanks purported to be taken in
eastern Ukraine, one of Germany’s largest broadcasters appears
guilty of the very same error.

The German media watchdog group, known as the Permanent Open
Committee of Media Monitoring, has issued a complaint against
federal channel Zweiten Deutschen Fernsehens (ZDF) over false
reporting on the situation in eastern Ukraine, Deutsche
Wirtschafts Nachrichten has reported.

The complaint involves a photograph that purports to show Russian
military presence in eastern Ukraine, a claim that Moscow has
denied on numerous occasions.

The news segment aired by ZDF featured a photo with the caption
"Russian armored vehicles moved through Isvarino in the
Lugansk region, February 12, 2015," citing "Ukrainian
army spokesman Andrei Lysenko." However, there is one
glaring problem with the photograph in question: it shows Russian
tanks in South Ossetia, not Ukraine.

The media watchdog determined that the photograph, which RT
believes is dated from the 2008 Russian-Georgian conflict in
South Ossetia, was already used in a Korean blog posting from
2009.

Meanwhile, the timing of the erroneous news segment – on the very
same day the leaders of Russia, Germany, France and Ukraine were
meeting in Minsk in an effort to broker a Ukrainian ceasefire –
could not have been less propitious.

In their complaint, the Open Committee states that "it would
be interesting to know why such an image, which has nothing to do
with the news in question, is being repeated, meant as it is to
convince a third party of the truthfulness of assumptions about
an "invasion by [Russian] armor."

“Putin keeps saying ‘we don’t have any Russians in there with
the separatists, it’s not us, we’re not doing it.’ Look, here
they are. These are the pictures we brought back with us.”
After showing the photographs, which turned out to be images from
Russia's 2008 conflict with Georgia, Inhofe presented grisly
photos of dead Ukrainian civilians.

Inhofe said the things that are happening in Ukraine are just as
bad as what happening “in ISIS, in Syria, and other
places.”

The same day Inhofe was forced to retract his allegations and
issue an apology.

“[T]he Ukrainian parliament members who gave us these photos
in print form as if it came directly from a camera really did
themselves a disservice,” Inhofe said in a statement.
“We felt confident to release these photos because the images
match the reporting of what is going on in the region. I was
furious to learn one of the photos provided now appears to be
falsified from an AP photo taken in 2008."

Meanwhile, the Russian Ministry of Defense has branded the latest
batch of photographs, this time from the US ambassador to
Ukraine, purporting to show Russian forces in Ukraine, as
“crystal ball gazing.”

On Saturday, the US ambassador to Ukraine, Geoffrey Pyatt, posted
on Twitter what he claims are satellite photos of Russian
artillery systems stationed near the town of Lomuvatka, about 20
kilometers northeast of Debaltsevo.

“We have failed to understand how those grainy dark patches
in the photos published by US Ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey
Pyatt on his Twitter feed could prove anything,” Major
General Igor Konashenkov, a spokesman for the Russian Defense
Ministry, told journalists later in the day.

“Unlike the American intelligence services, Russia’s military
[has] never considered crystal ball gazing a good way to check
and confirm data.”